


ripped at every edge

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:53:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6992263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simmons has been missing for three days, but finding her brings more questions than answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ripped at every edge

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I have these super huge ideas that are so complex and complicated that they're just IMPOSSIBLE to write. This is one of those times. I have SO MANY headcanons for this, so possibly there will be more? Maybe? But I can't make promises because even writing this much was super hard.
> 
> I'm behind on comment replies because I'm lame. Sorry! 
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Grant spots their quarry almost immediately upon entering the police station. She’s off to the left, handcuffed to a bench and shivering in thin purple scrubs, and when he points her out to Coulson, he doesn’t look any happier about her condition than Grant feels.

“Stay with her,” he orders. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Simmons doesn’t look up as Grant approaches. She’s muttering to herself, knees hugged to her chest with her free arm, and something about the way her bare toes curl around the edge of the bench makes him want to kill someone.

They’ve been looking for her for three days. He’s got a lot of violence built up, just waiting to be let loose at whoever took her.

(He really hopes it wasn’t John.)

It’s not until he crouches in front of her that she seems to notice him, and when she does, her expression crumples.

“Will,” she breathes, bizarrely, and then, “No. No. He said you’d do anything to fool me.”

Okay. Not a promising start.

“Who did, Simmons?” he asks, careful to keep the question gentle. It only takes one glance at her to know that she’s either drugged, traumatized, or—

He’s not thinking about _or_. The point is, she obviously needs to be handled with care, right now.

“Will,” she repeats, voice tiny and miserable.

“And who’s Will?”

Her eyes drift away from him, but when he glances over his shoulder to follow her gaze, all he sees is a clock.

“You killed him,” she says.

Is she talking to him or the clock?

“Simmons, focus,” he says, cupping her face in his hands. There’s a worrying chill to her skin, and he spares a second to be annoyed at the cops for not finding her a jacket or something. They got the call about her an hour ago; how long has she been sitting here freezing in her thin cotton scrubs? “Do you know who I am?”

Touching her face got her attention back on him, and now that they’re making eye contact, he can see that hers are unfocused. She’s a million miles away right now—and her pupils are blown wide. She’s gotta be drugged.

“Ward,” she says, and he only has a heartbeat to be relieved before she continues, “did this.”

“Did what?” he asks. Her eyes drift away again. “ _Simmons_. What did I do?”

Not that he’s expecting much sense out of her, but it’s better to keep the conversation going, try to keep her engaged. If nothing else, focusing on keeping _her_ focused is a way to stay calm and maintain his hold on his temper.

“You killed Koenig,” she says mournfully.

Seeing as how she’s apparently fixated on his more lethal skills right now, Grant racks his brain for a Will _or_ a Koenig—or a Will Koenig—that he’s killed (or even _met_ ) during their time on the team. No one comes to mind.

“Simmons—”

“You’re _HYDRA_ ,” she accuses.

Oh, fuck.

How does she know that? How does she even know that HYDRA is still a thing? Where the fuck has she _been_?

He doesn’t have time to puzzle it out, or even to press her further. Someone’s coming, and a quick glance in the direction of the footsteps he hears proves them Coulson’s. He’s looking tired and grim and not in the mood to be stalled; the best Grant can hope for is that anything incriminating Simmons has to say will be brushed off as crazy talk.

Still, it’s better to get out ahead of this, so Grant stands and takes a few steps to meet him away from Simmons.

“How is she?” Coulson asks.

“Pretty out of it,” Grant says honestly. He doesn’t have to feign his worry. “So far she’s called me Will, accused me of _killing_ Will, and accused me of killing someone named Koenig. No word on whether Will and Koenig might be the same person.”

“Yeah.” Coulson scrubs a hand over his face, looking at least ten years older than he did this morning. (And considering the fact that Simmons has been missing for three days, he looked pretty damn old this morning.) “That’s about what the detective had to say: no one can get much sense out of her.”

“They run any drug tests on her?”

“No,” Coulson says. “They haven’t done _anything_.” His tone is calm, but Grant’s been on his team long enough to recognize the fury hiding behind that bland expression. “Apparently, once they ran her prints and got the hit that she was a SHIELD agent, they decided to back off and leave her to us.”

Grant would like to express exactly what he thinks about _that_ , preferably through violence, but he doesn’t get the chance to even suggest it before a sob from Simmons draws their attention.

“Jemma?” Rusty he may be, but Coulson can still move pretty fast for a guy his age; he’s on his knees in front of her in seconds. “Can you—”

“It’s all right, sir,” she says, calm voice in direct contrast to the tears sliding down her face. “You couldn’t have known he would go so far—and pushing him was the only way to find us. I don’t blame you.”

Coulson pauses, but only for a beat. “I’m glad to hear it,” he says, apparently deciding to play along. “Are you hurt?”

Simmons blinks down at him, bemused. Then a weird look crosses her face, and she finally lets go of her death grip on her knees to touch her cheek instead. She must not have realized she’s crying; when her fingers come away wet, she stares at them like she’s never seen them before.

“No,” she says, slow and careful. “I’m not hurt.”

That she’s actually _responding_ to Coulson’s question is a pretty encouraging sign, and Grant steps up behind him, intending to add a question or two of his own. (Like where she’s been and what happened and if she’s coherent enough to remember and/or realize just what she accused him of a minute ago.)

Simmons’ eyes snap to him as soon as he moves.

“Ward?” she asks, and it’s like she’s actually _seeing_ him this time. “Are you…you?”

“Yeah,” he says, trading a worried glance with Coulson. “Who else would I be?”

She shivers. “A monster. A monster who steals people’s faces. He’s going to steal yours.”

Grant…really doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s not that difficult to “steal” someone’s face—plastic surgery and make-up can do a lot, to say nothing of some of the tech HYDRA’s got in development—but the monster mention’s a little disconcerting. Simmons isn’t given to that kind of fanciful hyperbole; she’s more likely to roll her eyes at someone talking about monsters than to do it herself.

The question is, is she just hallucinating and/or crazy? Or is actual intel about a credible threat just coming out jumbled?

“Okay,” he says. “Can you…give me any more than that? Do you know where to find this monster?”

Her eyes drift away again, into the kind of thousand-yard stare a sheltered scientist like her shouldn’t be capable of. Grant shouldn’t care—should be grateful, even, because if she stays in this state anything she says about him being HYDRA will _definitely_ be dismissed as crazed rambling—but he really, really doesn’t like seeing that look on her face.

And neither does Coulson, if that tension in his jaw’s any indication.

“Hell,” Simmons says softly.

Something about it—maybe how _seriously_ she says it, the weight she gives the word—sends a chill down Grant’s spine. Purely out of reflex, he scans their surroundings for threats.

And while he doesn’t see any threats, he _does_ see plenty of observers: more than one cop is looking unduly interested. Not in the possible enemy agent way, either; more the _look at the crazy_ _fed_ way. Grant sweeps them all with a glare that has one man actually dropping his coffee.

“Sir,” he says, without looking away from the boldest of the onlookers, “we’re pretty exposed here.”

“Yes, we are,” Coulson agrees, and Grant’s peripheral vision catches him uncuffing Simmons. “Can you walk, Simmons?”

“I walked for days,” is her mournful reply. “There was no water anywhere.”

“I’ve got her,” Grant promises, abandoning the stare-down at once. “Back to the Bus?”

“For now,” Coulson says. He shrugs out of his suit jacket and wraps it firmly around Simmons’ shoulders, then steps back to make way for Grant. “Until we can figure out what happened to her and what she might have been given…”

Grant nods in understanding. It’s a dilemma: Simmons obviously needs medical treatment, especially since she’s been dosed with fuck knows what kind of drugs. But while every SHIELD base has a decent infirmary, the _best_ place to take her is the Dome, which specializes in mentally compromised agents.

It also happens to be on the other side of the world, a good ten thousand miles away from any clues here in the city—and the longer they take to get on the trail of whoever took Simmons, the better chance her kidnappers have of disappearing completely.

“Maybe it’ll wear off,” he says, without much hope, as he bends to pick Simmons up. She barely blinks, just cuddles complacently against him. Her skin is still ice cold.

“Maybe,” Coulson says.

“It’s a terrible idea,” Simmons offers, stroking curious fingers along Grant’s jaw. The touch is feather-light and puts every one of his nerves on end, but looking down at her vacant stare, Grant’s never been less turned on. “You know I can’t lie.”

Chances are she’s got no idea what’s going on or what they’re talking about, but still…

“I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures,” she sighs, and it strikes him as a pretty bad sign.


End file.
